A Kitsap Superior Court judge Monday determined prosecutors had insufficient evidence to continue their case against a Bainbridge man charged with molesting a 4-year-old girl at the Aquatic Center in March.

Reserve earns garden award
The Bloedel Reserve was already celebrating summer.
Now the 150-acre north- end attraction is celebrating a “Horticulture Magazine Award for Garden Excellence” bestowed by the American Public Garden Association.

Apart from a Coast Guard sticker on a window, there isn’t much left of Wicca to suggest it was once afloat.
The cedar-shake houseboat, towed from Eagle Harbor to Port Gamble in March, is now a floorless cabin in a corner of the Caicos Corp. yard in Port Gamble.
Soon it won’t even be that.

The second reading of the 2009 Capital Facilities Plan (CFP) update takes place at tonight’s City Council meeting. This is the first opportunity for the public to offer formal comment to the full council on the draft CFP, and the first opportunity for the council to discuss the plan. Some background is in order.

Bainbridge Majors softball coach Melanie Edenholm suggested one minor adjustment to the batters against Sequim’s starting pitcher.
It paid off big time.
Bainbridge batted around in the fourth inning to score nine runs, rallying from a 3-0 deficit to defeat Sequim 11-5 in the Little League District 2 championship game at Snider Park in Poulsbo Monday night.

The Grand Old Fourth of July celebration once again reminds us all that Winslow Way really is the geographic heart of our community. It’s both our Main Street and our community living room. It’s where we shop, where we meet, and sometimes, it’s where we come together to celebrate.
Sadly, Winslow Way has also become our principal point of contention.

It’s an exciting weekend up ahead for avid gardeners. The long-anticipated 20th anniversary Bainbridge in Bloom garden tour will be July 11 through 13 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day. To celebrate the event’s longevity, they’ve rolled back ticket and event prices. More information can be found at the Bloom Web site, www.gardentour.info, or by calling the Bainbridge Island Arts and Humanities Council (BIAHC) at (206) 842-7901. Tickets are available at many of our local nurseries. The site also lists the locations for various food and refreshments interspersed at several locations this year.

Emotions were running high and the tension was so thick you could cut it with a knife at the staging area of the Bainbridge Annual Grande Olde Fourthe of Julye Parade last Fridaye afternoone. Anxious paraders milled about anxiously and anxiously glanced at their watches, all waiting anxiously for the parade to begin. One sign of the rampant pre-parade nervousness was the long line outside the two staging area Porta Potties located on the corner of Madison and Wallace Way. The line outside these Porta Potties was among the longest I saw all day, second perhaps only to the line in front of the booth offering free Obama stickers and the queue in front of the American Marine Bank ATM on Winslow Way.

You have to wonder about the morality of politicians, bureaucrats and Americans of all types who are strongly against torture when it’s done to us while believing the end justifies the means when the U.S. tortures a declared enemy to gather information.

Lying reclined on a picnic blanket with my hands beneath my head, staring up past the treetops where the ambience of a grand piano meshed with the sunshine and singing birds in the afternoon sky, I knew I’d found a getaway.

As the first Friday of July falls squarely on July 4 this year, art galleries in Bremerton have focused their exhibits quirkily around the Independence Day theme, and will be debuting with receptions that day.
Galleries on Bainbridge, including Bainbridge Arts and Crafts which recently received a $1 million endowment that made headlines, will be waiting it out, hosting their first Friday parties during the second week July 11 due to the nuttiness of the island’s Grand Ole Fourth celebration.

Ron Sher and Co. plan to host movie nights atop the old J.C. Penney building each weekend this month, starting with ‘Top Gun’ July 11.
The glow of city lights in downtown Bremerton envelope the old J.C. Penney building at night.
But it seems almost a lonely glow.

King Vidor’s 1928 silent film satire “Show People” reminds me of something like those “Scary Movie” flicks of today.
Those features (more like DVDs as they don’t even come out in theaters most of the time anymore) poke fun at the whole scary movie genre with spoofs on all the contemporary blockbusters and incredibly, oft intentionally, bad acting.
Vidor’s piece is much more of a beautiful relic with an all-star cast from the days of the silent film — featuring Marion Davies and William Haines, with cameos from everyone including Douglas Fairbanks, Charlie Chaplin and all the greats.

On the heels of what’s arguably Kingston’s grandest day of the year, comes something new.
Just up the street from the Little City by the Sea’s downtown core and Fourth of July events, the Independence Day celebration will be extended with a Saturday full of skate competition and concerts. From the group that basically brought you the Kingston Skate Park itself comes The Kingston Sk8 Rollick.